Dina Asher-Smith believes she has proved her class on the global stage after setting a new British record to claim a historic 100m silver medal at the World Championships.
The 23-year-old clinched second in 10.83 seconds – breaking her own national mark – to become the first British woman to win an individual world sprint medal.
Jamaica's double Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce took her fourth 100m world title in 10.71secs while the Ivory Coast's Marie-Josee Ta Lou was third.
She has done it!@dinaashersmith is a #WorldAthleticsChamps SILVER medallist. She crosses the line in 10.83 – a new British record – to win the 100th British medal at an IAAF World Championships. SENSATIONAL!#REPRESENT pic.twitter.com/ZkRIGQLFEp — British Athletics (@BritAthletics) September 29, 2019
"It's great. I can tell you now, I achieved my target for the 100m this year," said Asher-Smith, who won triple European gold last summer. "I wanted to come away with a medal of any colour despite all the headlines.
"I kept saying last year, the European golds are fantastic but it's different to transiting onto the global stage.
"I wanted to push myself into the top three women in the world.
"I didn't think on calibre I was there yet. So I still needed to take it up another notch and I'm very happy to have done that."
Asher-Smith also revealed she gave up sweets ahead of the Championships and the magnitude of her achievement was quickly sinking in.
She added: "No sweets for three weeks! It's been a lot of hard work. It's starting to kind of hit me a bit more because you lot (journalists) have known me since I've been like this big.
"I'm a competitor. So every race I go into I want to win. I want to run fast. Wherever I've got one leg hanging off or not."
It was also Great Britain's 100th medal at the World Championships since it started in 1983.
But it was another embarrassment for the IAAF with the Khalifa International Stadium virtually empty for the final.
Asher-Smith now turns her attention to the 200m, with the heats in Doha on Monday, and she is favourite to win gold in Wednesday's final.
She added: "I know there are different people that are going to be stronger in each event and so one of them hopefully should be me in 200m.
"You never know how championships are going to pan out so I'm being honest. Championships are inherently unpredictable and it's just about how you handle the rounds how you recover."
Meanwhile, Holly Bradshaw suffered heartbreak in the pole vault, which was won by neutral athlete Anzhelika Sidorova, by coming fourth.
In one of the greatest pole vault competitions in #WorldAthleticsChamps history, Anzhelika Sidorova clears a PB 4.95m to claim 🥇 pic.twitter.com/RxmjlJ2iot — IAAF (@iaaforg) September 29, 2019
The GB mixed 4x400m relay team of Rabah Yousif, Zoey Clark, Emily Diamond and Martyn Rooney also finished fourth in the final of the new format.
The USA took the title with Allyson Felix winning a record 12th World Championships title.
Earlier, Britain's Zharnel Hughes overcame his 100m disappointment by reaching the 200m semi-finals.
Hughes, who came sixth in the 100m final, clocked 20.24s while Adam Gemili ran a season's best of 20.06s and Miguel Francis posted 20.11s to progress.
💪 Nicely done by our three men in the 200m heats as @Adam_Gemili (1st – 20.06 SB), @zharnel_hughes (2nd – 20.24 SB) and Miguel Francis (20.11) all advance to the semi-finals. Follow the action on our live text feed 👉 https://t.co/3OX3oKtgz5#WorldAthleticChamps #REPRESENT pic.twitter.com/R0C5HmVM39 — British Athletics (@BritAthletics) September 29, 2019
Gemili failed to get beyond Saturday's semis in the 100m and afterwards tweeted a picture of the photo finish in his race, calling the result into question, after he came third but admitted it was rash.
"It was a bit of the heat of the moment, I should have taken 10 minutes and calmed down," he said.
"Someone showed it to me as I was getting on the bus and I went back to see the photo finish but they didn't let me in.
"I have to park it, it was a bit of an angry tweet. I tried to word it in a nice way but it was pure emotion."
